Say Hello to Trent Crable, The New Veep at Brooklyn Hospital

With the future of the medical center very much in flux, Fort Greene’s Brooklyn Hospital Center just named W. Trent Crable as its new executive vice president and chief operating officer, according to a statement from the institution’s outside public relations firm.

Mr. Crable comes to Ashland Place from a stint as the CEO of George Washington University Hospital, which is what’s known as a “tertiary academic medical center,” a very different place than a cash-strapped inner-city hospital with a high percentage of uninsured patients.

As such, the announcement focused on what may be Mr. Crable’s Job One: “A result of his leadership [at George Washington], hospital operating margins and market share improved significantly,” the statement said.

Before working at George Washington, Mr. Crable was an executive at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, a larger tertiary system and the teaching hospital for the University of Alabama, where he oversaw a $200 million budget and 1,800 full-time employees.

“Mr. Crable brings over two decades of healthcare experience at a variety of leading medical centers and multi-hospital systems,” said Richard Becker, president and CEO of Brooklyn Hospital. “His skills will play a critical role in the growth and transformation of the Brooklyn Hospital Center over the coming years.”

The “transformation” is in the form of a proposed merger to consolidate Brooklyn Hospital with Interfaith Hospital in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick in hopes of saving all three struggling facilities. That merger was put in doubt after Wyckoff Heights refused to sign on.

Brooklyn Hospital declared bankruptcy in 2005, but has recovered to being in the black. The hospital is hoping to be the lead institution in the merger, which would make all three medical centers for part of a $450 million pool of state cash set aside for hospital consolidation.

Mr. Crable resigned without fanfare last September from George Washington, but the departure was not announced to the local Washington press until January, when the president of the hospital’s parent company released a letter that he had sent to company employees. “Trent has decided that this is an appropriate time for him to pursue other interests and we have reached a mutually agreeable separation date,” the letter said.

8 Comments

Welcome to Brooklyn Hospital; I wish you the best in your new job at the Hospital. I write to tell you that the surrounding Fort Greene community desparately needs Brooklyn Hospital to be healthy,open and ready to serve the our neighborhood.

The north side of Fort Greene is home to some 10,000 people who reside in abject sqalor in the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) Fort Greene projects. They are an underserved population in more ways than one. As concerns the health care delivery front I urge you to meet with local leadership and community groups and partner with them. These are very serious and challenging times for health care providers and I want to believe Brooklyn Hospital will be able to continue to serve the needy for many years to come.

Not sue if the residents of NYCHA would be thrilled with the description of their living situation. There is also another medical facility in the immediate area as well.

We get that you attend community meetings, which is great. But what are you doing to contribute to change in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill? Pointing out the negative is not constructive. What organizations in the community do you hold an active position?

Will the Local PLEASE do a story on Joe Gonzalez, I’m positive the greater community of the Greene Hill would love to read this article when it is published. You have so much to say about what others should be doing but what are you doing Joe Gonzales?

No, I am not interested in meeting with you to talk. . . to talk somemore about what’s wrong in the world. What will make me happy is learning about what you are doing to contribute to positive change in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.

No Reggie, the use of the words, ‘abject’ and ‘squalor’ were well placed adjectives to describe the living conditions in Fort Greene Projects.

I am open to giving you and anyone else, a free guided tour thru these New York City-owned properties. This year alone I have provided two members of Fort Greene’s brownstone set with a guided tour thru the Projects and I will tell you they were stunned. One is a recent arrival while the other has been here about six years; neither ever set foot in the Projects.

I bet you don’t even reside in the Projects. For free guided tours thru Fort Greene Projects I may be contacted via e-mail thru The Local who will forward your e-mail to me.

I must have hit a raw nerve in you when I stated you hide behind a fake name. Or was it my description of living conditions in Fort Greene Projects?

You ask what I am I doing to improve things in this community. I EXPLAINED ABOVE & IN OTHER POSTINGS UNDER EARLIER THREADS THAT WRITING THOUGHT PROVOKING & PROVOCATIVE PIECES ABOUT CONDITIONS IN FORT GREENE PROJECTS IS MY CONTRIBUTION.

Please do not get annoyed at my longtime insistance at writing about poor conditions in and around Fort Greene . I do so because folks like you are in denial about the full extent of the problems that exist. Yes, someone must point out the problems even at the risk of incurring the rath of you & others. I am clear that in an another country we might not be able to have this free exchange of opinion. For that I am very grateful to The Local Staff for this Blog and the opportunity for the free exchange of opinions.

Your statement above “pointing out the negative is not constructive’ is simply false. Somebody must do so to balance the stories about the truly good things that are in fact taking place in this community. And to be sure there are many nice improvements taking place. And I have posted my appreciation of them. But it is also true that the many improvements in the Fort Greene Community have NOT included Fort Greene Projects which is home to some 10,000 people.

Joe,
TALK IS CHEAP. Your writing is not though provoking, it is simply you complaining about things. You want to make a difference, organize something, give your time to one of the worthy causes in the greater Greene Hill. Giving tours of the projects is great and all but what is the next step to fix the situation? Dedicate your time to something that will give you results you can measure – complaining online is not the way.

Many great leaders point out what is wrong in the world however they also organized ways to right the wrongs. Joe, you are half way there, the online community of the Greater Greene Hill looks forward to seeing you come to the other side.

So you know this, I don’t need a tour of the projects – I am comfortable walking through all areas of the Greene Hill.

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The Local provides news, information, entertainment and informed conversation about the things that matter to you, your neighbors and your family, from bloggers and citizens who live, work and create in your community. It is run by students and faculty of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to assure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards.

Get news about Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in our daily roundup, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s summer slate of youth-oriented programs and the third annual Art of Brooklyn Film Festival coming to St. Joseph’s College in Clinton Hill.

In today’s daily post, you’ll find news on the spring opening of the Fort Greene Artisan Market, a Pratt Institute student artwork display at a Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan and a new recording studio in the nabe.

In this crime report, locals told police that their belongings were stolen from cars and trucks, their homes were burglarized and their bank accounts were used in unauthorized ways. Also, disputes between significant others resulted in violence and robberies last week. The trend of robberies on the B38 bus continued last week, with another incident on May 4 marking the tenth such robbery in the precinct this year so far.

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